Rules of Great Relationships and Marriage: Why Making HER Happy Makes EVERYBODY Happy

The explanation of yesterday’s promised “thunderbolt” – Why making her happy makes everybody happy, and what you can easily do to make it happen, automatically and consistently so that BOTH OF YOU enjoy it.

For those who had the bad fortune to miss yesterday’s edition, go back and read it, because it was good and because it sets up today’s edition. We’ve all heard “If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy,” (unless some of us have been living under a rock), and we’re all pretty well convinced that it’s a universal truth that will never be disproved. However, have you ever thought about the converse?

If mama is happy, everybody’s happy!

Why would I suggest such a thing? It’s the core of everything I’ve been talking about for a very good reason: things really work this way in the real world. Right now, I’m going to help you accept and understand this by explaining why they work this way.

It can be quite shocking when you realize how much of how we relate depends upon or is derived from this model (discussed in yesterday’s edition, so once again, if you’ve not read it, go back and do so before continuing here) of “men are hunters, women are gatherers.”

In case you’re not familiar with basic anthropology, here’s the super-short summary: in the earliest days of human existence, before agriculture and for some time after the development of agriculture, men hunted for meat and women gathered fruits, nuts, roots, etc. and raised the children; later, women most likely developed agriculture to have a more convenient food supply. One must remember that during this time, 90% or more of a person’s time was spent in securing a food supply.

We’re talking about a long, long time here, during which women were together, gathering and later farming in groups and learning to communicate, while men were out hunting alone or in small groups that kept very quiet to keep from scaring the game. These activities caused women to evolve to be genetically “wired” to be more social and nurturing, and have more sophisticated communications skills due to their activities causing the more rapid and full development of the bridge between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, called the “corpus callosum,” and the left hemisphere of the brain to develop more densely than in men.

They also developed a system of safeguards against nurturing the wrong kind of man. There are biological triggers that turn on this behavior when a woman sees strong alpha male behavior, which causes her to nurture in a manner appropriate to a mate, and in the presence of children; for many women, child-like behavior, such as a “middle-aged adolescent,” causes them to nurture and protect the man as would be appropriate for a mother, taking charge of the man’s life and affairs and attempting to save him in a codependent relationship. So since the process is biological and not logical, it is very difficult for a woman to resist and unfortunately, not foolproof; she can end up nurturing a man who is bad for her, like an alpha male with psychopathic tendencies who beats her, or a middle-aged adolescent with sociopathic tendencies who sucks her dry and moves on to his next host.

Whether you accept evolution as the cause of this difference or not, the difference is there, it’s consistent, and the behavior it creates is consistent; it’s what creates the feminine and masculine aspects of personality and communication skills and style.

Now, the big question: what does this mean to your relationship or marriage?

Generally speaking, women are naturally social, nurturing, and sensitive; men are not so much nurturing as protective. We are naturally loners; even when we’re in groups we tend to act competitively instead of socially and cooperatively. We are combatants; we tend to deal with problems by trying to overpower them or through other competitive needs, not through any nurturing means, even when it would mean converting an enemy to a friend. And let’s face it, a lot of men are finding out the hard way that women’s natural skill in non-verbal communication makes them superior negotiators and poker players in a great many male-female match-ups.

So how can you put this to work for you?

This is the great secret of relationships that is really no secret at all. If a man will make the effort to create attraction for his female partner, her response will automatically be to respond with excitement, sensitivity, wife-like (as opposed to mother-like) nurturing, and attractive behavior toward him. She won’t have to put any effort into it, because it will all be triggered by her attraction. It’s biological, and therefore not only automatic, but unavoidable (which is what gets women in trouble with predatory users, abusers, and losers who have mastered attraction tactics and use it mercilessly to attract and hold their victims.) Why?

To fully understand and accept this, you must understand the intensity of attraction. The only good way I can explain this to men is to call your attention to what happens when you start feeling intense attraction, when you reach that point where you MUST have sex with a woman and then MUST experience orgasm with her. It is different for women in that attraction for us is mostly (but not entirely) a matter of visual perception and happens very quickly while for women it is actuated by a combination of a lot of triggers that confirm your status as an alpha male.

It is therefore built much more slowly, but if you can recall the thrill and urgency of that attraction and your desire to maintain access to the woman who creates it, you can then have at least a partially accurate frame of reference for the intensity of what women feel; for them, it is even more intense because those feelings build more slowly and have time to create more excitement. Also note that while our excitement creates an intense urgency that is satisfied after the orgasm, theirs creates less urgency but more emotional intensity, making for a longer-lasting effect.

One other thing that you should note is the effect of the hormone oxytocin (do not confuse this with the pain medication, oxycontin). Oxytocin is called “the cuddle hormone,” and it facilitates a mother bonding with her children and her husband. It is released in small amounts during physical touching, especially stroking the skin, and is released in large amounts after orgasm. It therefore follows that taking the time to build attraction for a woman to ultimately increase her excitement, desire, and arousal to the point where she can then experience orgasm (simple physical stimulation is seldom if ever enough for a woman – attraction must happen) on a regular basis, she will be more apt to remain happily married. So yes, in spite of what the politically correct would have you believe, sex is indeed a very important part of marriage, and if it slows down or even stops, trouble is coming, if it’s not already upon you.

The bottom line? Make the effort to become the confident, attractive alpha male that will light her fire and keep it lit and you will start a largely self-sustaining chain reaction that will keep the two of you intimate, excited, and happy for years to come. The choice is of whether to have or lose this happiness is yours, so make the obviously good choice, and follow through. Everything you need to know to make it happen is in the pages of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” Download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com and get started, because the journey is fun, and the destination is one to live for.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

The Most Important Skills in Building, Maintaining, or Saving a Relationship or Marriage, Part 1

A reader writes about his success and discoveries in reviving his marriage in the post-affair situation that many of you have written me about. Do yourself a big favor and learn from him…

I love letters like the ones I’m about to share with you. They prove just how much a guy with genuine desire, a little courage, and the right information can accomplish.

The following is a partial transcript of several e-mails that have passed back and forth between Mark and me today. He inspired a few noteworthy remarks from me, but his insight and achievement are the real stars today. This is really long, so I’m going to break this up over the next couple of days to keep from overloading your schedule. Join us now…

David,

Well I've been subscribing to your newsletter for a couple of months and bought your e-book, but I was really having some trouble putting your ideas to work. You see I had let my marriage get to a point that my wife was bored enough to have an affair. We've fought our way back from the brink and through your help I could see that I needed to take action, but I just couldn't figure out how to do it. So the other night I figure I'm going to make my wife notice that I'm different.

We're sitting on the bed watching TV and I just think I have to do something right now! So I sit up and lean over and look very serious. And I say, "you know, there's something that I've always wanted to do to you in bed." The look on her face was priceless. I could tell she thought that I was about to suggest some kind of sexual act and she obviously didn't want to play. But instead I grabbed the pillow and smacked her over the head with it and yelled "pillow fight!"

Talk about fun, we spent a couple of minutes rough housing on the bed and laughing so hard we woke up the kids. She was so surprised that her mood completely changed from somber to happy. This led to us having all kinds of fun that night. So I am totally getting the cocky and fun aspect of what you suggest.

The only thing that I am having trouble with at this time is that I am a stay-at-home dad. I am in the process of changing that but I'm still a couple of months out from getting the necessary training I need to get back to work. What specific ideas could you suggest for me to keep my wife attracted while I go through this transition?

Thanks,
Mark

My reply:

Hi Mark!

The pillow fight was a masterful move, so you're really getting it. That kind of fun is what makes intimacy happen, especially when you initiate it. And you can turn it up a lot hotter than that, too.

For example, one reader’s wife is one of those women who have a compulsion to pick up anything you point at. He sets her up by dropping something in the floor, and later when she's in the vicinity, he looks over at it and says, "What's that?" When she bends over, he gives her a playful little pinch or swat on the behind, or some other kind of mildly sexual "gotcha" maneuver. She laughs and tries to act mad because he got her again and can't stop herself from laughing.

The thing is to dream up things that are fun for you and not somehow degrading, humiliating, or painful for her (which would kill the fun for her instead of making it happen). That has a two-fold benefit. First, it takes the pressure off of you because you're having fun and she's along for the ride, and second, a woman will go along with just about anything for fun as long as it isn't somehow disrespectful, painful, or downright scary.

Case in point, consider the "wedgie." If you do it just far enough for it to be called a wedgie and surprise her, or just gently snap the band on her panties when it's exposed as she bends over, it's a shock, and when she sees that naughty boy grin she can't help but to laugh, where if you pull hard on the wedgie you can hurt her, or if you give her elastic the extreme snap it might sting that sensitive skin to the point of pissing her off.

(By the way, that’s the reason most women don’t like having their bra straps snapped. It’s been done excessively, too hard, and disrespectfully, and they have bad memories associated with it. Once you’ve earned her trust by doing these other things in a way she finds fun and trusts you not to hurt or disrespect her, the bra straps become fair game, too, but make sure you earn that trust before going where she’s likely to have bad feelings from the past.)

Stunts like wedgies and snapping elastic are much more about insinuation than achievement; "I could have really burnt you up if I wanted to, but I didn't because I love you and want to have fun with you, not hurt you," is the underlying message. (Be careful about pulling hard on elastic with the intention of letting up to only a gentle snap as well, because sensitive skin or tissue in the breast or groin area can be hurt as much or more by the pull than the snap if you catch it just right.) And you can have a lot of fun and excite her with anything that conveys that message.

You may have caught the e-mail a few days ago in which a guy interrupted his wife's bratty rant by pulling her pants down and walking out of the room grinning. That works great if she's just in a bratty rant and not genuinely pissed about a legitimate issue, and as long as it's just you and her in the room. Change any one of those variables and it's an act of disrespect instead of fun.

And by the way, there's nothing wrong giving her a playful nip on the breast or neck or something when nobody's looking, either. The earlier in the day you put a sexual thought in her head, the more she'll stew on it through the day and the easier it will be to ramp her up to the point where she's ripping your clothes off of you at bedtime. As you read in my book, anticipation is the name of the game, remember?

As for your home situation, it's not so difficult as you might think. Being a provider is part of the biological trigger equation, but so is being a protector, and being fun, intelligent, self-respectful, etc. If you get anxious and depressed about not having a job, it will have a negative impact.

If you treat your training as a job, and get excited about the training and the job prospects, that attitude and confidence will come across as heroic, and build trust and intimacy, not to mention be exciting to your wife. Women like to live vicariously through other people at times because it provides an emotional lift, and if she sees you striving heroically through a career change, it excites her and makes her feel safe.

In contrast, if you get insecure and anxious about it, you become a high-maintenance problem like a girlfriend and her confidence in you drops like a rock. You also point out how at the moment you are not a provider, but a dependent, and that’s really bad in the attraction equation. So in short, as long as you go through that transition with confidence and continue to look forward to success and remain fun and dedicated in the meantime, you're golden.

Just keep the communications lines open so that she gets an occasional taste of your confidence and excitement. Answer her questions with real answers instead of just "okay," or "It's going well," and then shutting up.

Give her a few details of things that you're learning and things you're excited about -- not verbose descriptions of technical processes that will bore the hell out of her, but stuff like, "I learned how to operate such-and-such today, and it was tough, but I enjoyed it. I'm getting really excited about this."

If it's not enough, she'll ask you specific questions, and if it is enough, she'll say something like she's happy for you that pretty obviously moves toward a new subject. And by the way, best wishes for whatever it is you're pursuing...

Take care, and keep in touch!
David Cunningham

Mark’s reply to this advice carries some insights and reports of further success and experimentation that you will not want to miss tomorrow, so don’t. But let’s take a closer look at this and make sure you catch the most important parts of today’s lesson.

First, women love to play just as much as we do, and sometimes I suspect that it’s more than we do, but I don’t have any way to objectively measure it. They can get just as wild, crazy, bold, raunchy, and irreverent as any man, given the right circumstances. They don’t tolerate disrespect any more than we do, and pain isn’t any more fun for them than it is for us. Don’t be afraid to be yourself; if you go too far, switch gears fast and find a new way to play. Don’t dote and start apologizing all over yourself.

If you do trip over some hot button that you didn’t and couldn’t have known existed, apologize, once, not many times like a wuss would, cuddle her up and tell her that you’re there to love and protect her, not to deliberately say or do anything to hurt her, and as soon as you feel her tension wane a bit, start back in on her with something else. You’ll find that “two steps forward, one step back” applies to a lot more than just attraction-building.

Second, take a close look at what I said about his career situation. That’s a general formula for dealing with any kind of adversity. If you act all distraught and whiney, you appear weak and feminine, and in the back of her mind, an alarm sounds that says, “Warning! Warning! Another drama queen to manage!” You lose man points, lots of them. And if you allow her to see you as a dependent instead of a partner, the clock starts running faster and faster as you move toward the point where she’s done with you.

But, if you keep the attitude that adversity creates opportunity, deal with the situation with an air of looking forward to success, and talk with her about how you see that success and your effort to reach it, you will inspire her to trust you and support you, possibly to a degree you would have never expected. Heroism is a form of romance, and when you take the heroic approach to dealing with adversity, you put your wife right in the middle of epic romance – an outstanding opportunity in the midst of adversity when you think about it.

It doesn’t take a whole lot to be the guy who pulls this off all his life with grace and very little conscious effort. A little knowledge will go a long way, knowledge about what women want, need and respond to, about how they communicate, and what flips on the fun, excitement and attraction switches. Sound like a lot?

Sure it does. It has all our life. We grew up hearing the story about the genie who thought it would be easier to build a bridge from Los Angeles, California to Hawaii than to tell the man who’d rubbed the lamp what makes women tick, or what women really want, depending on which version of the joke you hear. Apparently I’m a lot smarter than that genie, because I did it in 118 pages, not with the help of a genie, but of a whole bunch of women and their men.

When you want to learn something, you go to the source, plain and simple. I went to the source, learned everything they could teach me, translated it into man-speak, and gave it to their husbands to test on them. There were some discrepancies where the women thought they wanted things and didn’t like it when they got them – the old “be careful what you wish for” scenario. But we got it all ironed out and on paper, so to speak.

Actually, it’s in an Adobe PDF file, called "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and you can download it right now at http://www.makingherhappy.com if you want to be one of us guys who knows all that mysterious stuff about women that you’re not supposed to know – and your wife or girlfriend WANTS DESPERATELY for you to know. Give it a shot, and in a couple weeks you’ll be writing me letters about success instead of sitting there in front of that computer wishing you had a success to write about.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Getting It Done, No Matter What "IT" Is, Is Great for Your Relationship and Marriage

There are all sorts of things that create or kill attraction, both in dating and in committed relationships and marriage. In dating, unpredictability is wildly attractive, but in a committed relationship, while unpredictability is attractive to a degree (and under several unsurprising constraints), it is far surpassed by…

When I was growing up, I was constantly hammered about character, especially in terms of doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. "Do what you say you'll do, perform as if somebody is watching even when they aren't, shake hands with a firm grip, look people in the eye when speaking or listening, always be on time no matter what, hold your head up and speak clearly. That's what a man does, Son. He respects himself and is respected because of it." The lesson “took,” too, so much so that while I hold nobody to a higher standard than I hold myself, incompetence and tardiness are nearly intolerable to me.

When you keep your promises consistently, no matter how large or small they are, it creates the one form of predictability that actually enhances attraction. Normally, predictability equates to boredom for women, and unpredictability in a man provides a never-ending chain of surprises and delights. However, doing what you say you will do in a timely manner, being on time for appointments and dates, and keeping people apprised of changing schedules when circumstances beyond your control do make keeping a scheduled appointment or milestone impossible is a hallmark of good character, personal strength, self-respect, and leadership, the combination of which is the hallmark of strong, heroic alpha male behavior that women find so irresistible.

In addition to projecting that crucial image of trustworthy, competent leadership, in this day and age, you’re also distinguishing yourself from the vast majority of other people as special, because incompetence and lackadaisical attitude has become so prevalent that while we don’t like it, most of us have come to expect incompetence, lack of commitment, and tardiness from the majority of people and businesses we deal with daily. Showing your partner that you are one of us rare men who get things not just done, but done well, and on time every time makes her feel as if she has the “catch of the county,” and when you do anything that tweaks and satisfies a woman’s sense of competitiveness, you’re making magic.

Another thing you must see is that even the most secure women want a man to make them feel “safe,” that is emotionally, physically, and financially, and showing such self-respect, leadership, and character marks you as a man into whom she can invest her emotions, energy, and life without fear of becoming one of the horror stories that other women are telling. You’ve heard the stories they tell, stories of men who falsely promised love to get sex, hung around just long enough to spend the woman’s savings, acted like such a great guy until the first time he got mad or depressed and beat her, left her, or just got drunk and worthless and stayed that way. Being able to see you as a man who gets things done is one of those really big things that makes the difference between a guy who’s a fun date and a guy she’ll give anything to spend her life with.

If you find yourself unable to meet a lot of commitments, consistently tardy, or having things blow up in your face frequently, and it doesn’t bother you, wake up, because you’re bothering the hell out of the rest of us. However, if you are indeed concerned and just can’t seem to find the answer, the first step is to make sure you are looking in the right place. It’s not the system’s fault or everybody else’s, or for that matter anybody’s FAULT. Fault and blame are the tools that losers use to evade what you should be focused on, which is RESPONSIBILITY.

When you take responsibility for performing competently and being timely, you can look to yourself for the answer. Am I late because I’m overloading myself, or because I just wait until the last minute to start? Am I incompetent because I don’t know enough to do a good job, or because I’m ill-suited to the task, or because I dislike it so much that I really don’t want to do it at all? Just find out what it is that is causing the problem and fix it. For example…

No, wait. Before I give you an example, I’m going to very quickly answer the question that has some of you scratching your head: “Why is it so important to be timely?” Because when you keep people waiting, you are wasting THEIR life, in addition to your own. It’s bad enough when you can’t respect yourself enough to do what you say you’ll do, but when you tie somebody else up by being late when you had the ability and the choice available to you to be on time, you’re disrespecting them, and interfering with their ability to achieve what they have on their schedule in a timely fashion. Look past the end of your nose and realize that your attitude and actions can have a negative impact on the lives of others that they have not earned, and minimize it.

Now, for your examples…

If your wife is always riding you because the yard work is getting put off, ask yourself why it’s being put off. Is your schedule too over-loaded? Do you have arthritis or something else that makes it painful? Or something that makes it irritating, like a grass allergy? Is it just much lower on your priority scale than on hers and you never make it down that far on the list? If the cause is something that you can’t remedy yourself, then hire it out. If it is something you can remedy, like with a “riding mower” to overcome arthritis or a surgical mask and antihistamines to overcome allergies, do it. If you just hate doing it, then see if you can trade that chore with your wife or somebody else who does enjoy it for something that you enjoy doing that they aren’t good at or don’t like. Barter is the oldest form of trade, and the oldest form of cooperative problem-solving.

We do that at my house. I hate yard work. I don’t mind the labor, and I love being outside. The repetitiveness is boring, I have a grass pollen allergy, and it reminds me too much of the farm work I did as a child that I hated, which in turn wasn’t because it was hard work, but because it kept me from extra-curricular activities. Yes, it’s an “issue,” and maybe one that I could deal with better, but I don’t have to deal with it, because my wife loves to do yard work.

She likes repetitive tasks, likes being outdoors, and enjoys the fresh air and the smell of freshly cut grass. I’m an exceptionally-skilled chef, and I do all the cooking. That’s not to say that I don’t help with an outdoor project, like setting a flower bed or building a planter, or that my wife doesn’t occasionally cook. We’ve each traded the ongoing responsibility for the timely completion of tasks that we deem as chores for the responsibility of the timely completion of tasks that we deem as fun and enjoyable.

The bottom line is that there is always a way to handle whatever comes up, if you just use your head and think it through instead of letting your emotions interfere or letting problems just fester unattended. And, when you handle things as they come up, meet your commitments in terms of both outcome and schedule, it builds your self-esteem and you are seen and appreciated by everyone else as a man’s man. It’s also an especially effective turn-on for the woman in your life, the kind that she will not only appreciate, but nurture and defend (but if it just stopped the nagging it would be great, right? LOL! Just kidding!)

Guys, there are a lot of small, simple things that you can do to spice up and strengthen your relationship that on the surface may not even seem to have any bearing on it, things that you should be doing for your own sake, or that of your business. When you understand your partner’s needs, both by knowing all you can know about female mental and emotional mechanisms and learning how to effectively communicate with her so that you can learn her individual needs as well, you can take a sub-mediocre relationship to rock solid and hotter than nine kinds of hell in a matter of weeks or even days, as many of my readers have, provided that the two of you are just fairly compatible and have a positive basis for the relationship. (Having been through a shared trauma like an unwanted pregnancy, tornado, or a hostage situation and getting married in a fit of passion just because you survived it together without any common values, common priorities, etc., does not make for “fairly compatible” partners.) What do you need to proceed?

Just some solid, tested and proven information like I’ve included in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." It worked for the 118 couples in the test group during its development, and if it’s not working for anybody who’s using it now, they’ve not told me. I get letters daily with success stories from readers, and in fact, here’s one that just arrived as I was getting this newsletter ready to post:

David,

Thank you so much for your newsletters and your e-book.

I have to say that you have helped me more than you could know. I started reading your book when things in my marriage went south. I was unable to salvage that relationship, due mostly to my spouse's issues rather than mine. I was in extreme wussy mode towards the end of my marriage and have made great strides in removing that mentality from my existence.

I have since entered into another relationship and have put into practice many of the things that you suggest. My new lady friend has made comments to me such as "I really like your self esteem" - "everyone says you’re a nice guy, but there is a naughty side to you too" and other comments along this line.

I have caught myself at times slipping into wussy mode and have kicked myself out of it. Your teachings have helped me not only in this relationship but with myself in general. I can't thank you enough.

Sincerely,
Steve

I often share readers’ letters when they hold a lesson for the rest of you and can be conveyed while maintaining the reader’s privacy, and this one just happened to pop up saying something you needed to hear, that a real guy with real problems took this ball and ran with it, and he’s happy now. You’re welcome to peruse my newsletter archive at your leisure at the address below for other testimonials and lessons, as well as download my free reports and put them to work for you right now. But…

Your best move right now is to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and get your copy of this instantly downloadable e-book, "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and get started, because it works, and you should never put off until tomorrow the success and happiness that you can have today. That’s how a real man lives, getting it done when it’s there to do and moving on, happily, not stressing about what he’s going to do next.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Personal Responsibility and Abundance Mentality: Great Tools for Great Relationships and Marriage

One of the cornerstones of creating attraction is leadership, and the hallmark of leadership is personal responsibility. Let’s talk…

I was reading one of Shelley McMurtry’s newsletters (which you can sign up for at her website – she talks a lot about dating and provides some great insight into the female point of view and priorities in relationships and may be something you’ll enjoy) and she was talking about something a lot of us refer to as “perceived reality,” which is a phrase used to describe a condition where a person’s outlook on the world is inconsistent with reality because of how they have chosen to construe certain events.

An example she was using was a common one, people who have a few bad dates or bad relationships and give up, presenting the reason for their cowardice as “all men are bad,” or “all women are bad,” or “relationships just suck and aren’t worth the hassle.” She also told of a friend who has been married to a man who just got lazy, started spending all of her income and savings, and she ended up kicking him out, but instead of developing the “all men are lazy bums” mentality or “perceived reality,” she took responsibility for her situation, acknowledged that she had made a bad choice, took corrective action (kicked him out) and went on with her life.

It dawned on me in the course of reading this that what we (several of us newsletter and e-book writers) had been referring to as “perceived reality” was actually the product of a failure to take personal responsibility for one’s life, and I wrote to Shelley about it. I want to share that letter with you, and point out how you can use this to enrich your life and your relationship afterward.

Hi Shelley!

I wanted to thank you again for introducing me and my e-book to your readers, and to lodge a comment on this "perceived reality" concept that I think that you and many of your readers will appreciate.

Like you, I differentiate between "perceived reality" and plain, simple reality. However, we are both being too kind when we refer to it as "perceived reality," because it is indeed not at all perceived, but contrived by people who refuse to accept reality.

Perception is the process of the sensory organs of the body doing what they do, nothing more. The American Heritage Dictionary defines "perceive" as "1. To become aware of directly through any of the senses, especially sight or hearing. 2. To achieve understanding of; apprehend." What we have been referring to as "perceived reality" is actually a fantasy that people manufacture when they interpret their perception and choose to reject what their sensory organs pick up and conduct to their brain.

What's worse, they expect everyone around them to validate their fantasy by buying in! As you've noticed, every time you tell someone something factual and they come back at you with "BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" they're trying to force some fantasy on you to the extent that you either buy in or give them a superficial sanction or validation just to shut them up and get them out of your face.

What differentiates such people (like the prissy butt-nuggets you speak of) from us and your friend the university professor with the ranch is that we acknowledge that reality is what it is and take personal responsibility for functioning within it, where these other morons and losers take no responsibility for anything. They can be spotted from a great distance, or at least heard from a great distance, because they share the same pet phrases, like "Well it looks like it ought to..." "Well people say that..." "Well, it's generally conceded that..." "All men/women are..." and my favorite, "But I'm ONLY human." Such phrases are the leper's bell of an approaching loser butt-nugget who will not get with the program but expects you to get with it for them.

Personal responsibility not only allows, but compels a person to assess their situation and take steps to improve it. Those who take personal responsibility see the world around them and mold it to suit them through action; they don't need to fabricate some fantasy to validate their pathetic excuses.

That's what being human is about, and why we are at the top of the food chain of all life on this planet. Being human is not something for which we should apologize; it's something to which we should aspire! And reality, for all its punishment and rewards, is the court in which our achievements or lack thereof are judged.

Take care,
David Cunningham

Can you see where personal responsibility works in your favor, and failure to take it works against you? No woman will feel love or attraction for a man who can’t take personal responsibility for his life, at least not for long. A man who doesn’t value his own life enough to take responsibility for it will make it plain that he can be nothing more than a dependent, and never a partner.

A woman’s maternal drive may engage and try to nurture such a man, but she will also be “wearing the pants in the family,” and in her eyes, he will be no more than a weak, grab-asstic adolescent slacker, definitely not a candidate for intimacy or capable of creating attraction for her. Eventually she will get bored and look outside the marriage for relief from that boredom, and it won’t matter if it’s before or after the divorce, because she will feel justified and entitled.

Compare this to a man who does take personal responsibility. Like the butt-nugget (Shelley’s term for a person who doesn’t take personal responsibility), his situation is of his own making, but the man who takes responsibility will use that situation to define his options in achieving his goals and go after them, not just in his relationship, but in all aspects of his life. His bearing will be confident and heroic, where the slacker’s will be victim-like. I’ll give you a guess as to which one creates attraction and which one has the woman secretly (or even overtly) looking at the online personals and smiling at strangers.

(Men, the same applies to women, with a slight twist. If a woman refuses to take personal responsibility for her life, it can engage a man’s “protector mechanism,” and cause him to think he needs to “save” her. Never allow yourself to fall into this trap; any woman worth having doesn’t need saving. Those who need saving can’t be saved, and will only suck you dry like any other parasite and then move on to their next host.)

I’ll also give you a guess as to which one sees opportunity as seizes it and which one sees opportunity and says, “But what if it doesn’t work?” Which of those two guys is going to go the farthest in his career? Have the most friends? Have the most fun? Have the best marriage? Yep, you guessed it. And BAM! That thought just opened another door!

Do you recall (if you’ve been with me for awhile) me (or maybe John Alanis if you’ve been in the dating world recently, or any one of many motivational speakers) mentioning “scarcity mentality”?

Scarcity mentality is a state of seeing everything in your life as limited and scarce. It makes you hang onto a bad relationship, bad job, etc., because a bad one is better than none at all, where an abundance mentality is a state of seeing everything as a journey to better and better things, knowing that you can create your opportunities and do what is necessary to reach your goals.

Take two people, one with a scarcity mentality and one with an abundance mentality, and give them ten thousand dollars. The one with scarcity mentality will live in fear of losing his money, and will most likely spend it on things that bring him no real value rather than risk losing it, or will never spend it and enjoy it because he’s too busy keeping his options open to ever exercise one of them.

However, the one with the abundance mentality will see the opportunities that cash presents, and use it to make even more money, and will reach financial independence if he is diligent in the conduct of his business, or if someone manages to steal it from him or his market takes an unexpected turn against him, he will say, “Wow! Now I know how to do this right, and can protect myself from it next time. I’m going to raise capital and try it again!”

A lesser man might make it that far, but when faced with failure, have scarcity sneak in on him and cause him to decide, “Well, I’m just not cut out for this, and any business I start is going to fail, so I’m just going to not bother trying again.”

That same thing happens in relationships. People take responsibility, have a great relationship for a while, things go sour for some unexpected reason, and in a fit of emotional weakness, they say, “Well, I had the wool pulled over my eyes, and relationships aren’t worth it after all,” instead of just acknowledging the reality that either they made a mistake or their partner did, or maybe even both of them, and sitting down to discuss it and making repairs to the relationship or exiting to find a better one.

We could explore this subject for hours and still never talk about all of the ramifications of personal responsibility, the lack of it, and the effects of scarcity and abundance mentalities, but instead, I’m going to leave you with this to ponder and search your own life for the answer:

Personal responsibility coincides with abundance mentality, and a lack of personal responsibility coincides with scarcity mentality. It’s consistent, but is there a single cause-and-effect relationship, or does the door swing both ways, meaning, will taking personal responsibility induce an abundance mentality and will an abundance mentality also induce personal responsibility?

Ask the same questions of lack of responsibility and scarcity, and send me your thoughts on all of the above by replying to this newsletter. The point of the exercise is to help you identify ways to improve your life and relationship as well as traps that may cause you to get sucked into a pattern of thought and behavior that could rob you of everything you love before you know what happened.

If your own relationship is in anything less than the best condition it could be in, which is highly unlikely or you wouldn’t be reading this, you have an opportunity right now to take personal responsibility for it, regardless of fault, blame, or any of the other tools of the guilt-inducing parasite, and start making your relationship what best suits your life. You can take on the mentality of abundance with a single simple choice to see that things can be better and you can make them so, to see everything you want as an opportunity instead of a deficit.

If you do, the first step you need to take is to jump over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and get your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," where you will find everything you need to get your attitude in order, your relationship skills assessed and up to par, and get your relationship assessed and fixed (or replaced with one that works, if you’re one of the unfortunate ones in a destructive relationship). Take it now, because life is far too short to spend it doing, living and being anything less than the best and happiest you can, and this is your ticket to success.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Why Nice Guys Finish Last, Especially in Relationships, Part 4, Self-Sacrifice

Now for the most destructive of all “Nice Guy” traits, self-sacrifice…

Brace yourself, because I’m about to either open your eyes or piss you off royally. But a little excitement won’t hurt you either way.

The subject of self-sacrifice is always controversial because most people are very confused about the meaning of the word “sacrifice;” they often refer to choices they have made in “trade” as “sacrifice” without realizing it, and then get angry when somebody says, using the word “sacrifice,” that they did something wrong. Let me give you an example or two to make sure we’re on the same page before we move on.

Let’s say you meet a guy on a street corner, and it’s obvious that he’s homeless, penniless, and a drug addict; he’s wearing short sleeves, has visible needle track marks, and is in obvious withdrawal. You give him money, which he uses not for food, clothing, or shelter, but to buy more drugs and bring himself closer to the grave.

Now take that same situation, except instead of it being obvious that the man is a drug addict, it’s obvious that he’s hit tough times and trying to claw his way back up out of the hole. His clothes may be somewhat tattered, but they’re clean. He asks if you’ve heard of any available work. And he looks you in the eye when he speaks. You give him money, which he uses for food and a payphone to try to find a job.

The former is sacrifice, the latter is trade. In the former scenario, you are trading a marker of value, money, which is in turn a marker for some portion of your life that it took to obtain that money, for absolutely nothing. Nobody benefits, and that value is destroyed. In the latter, you are trading that value for the satisfaction of helping someone get back on his feet. There is something in it for you and the other guy. That is trade.

Now, let’s bring the situation closer to home. Some family member has a substance abuse problem (I use the example only because it’s easy to see the impact, not because I have an axe to grind), and you keep pouring money into rehabilitation clinics and medical bills, and in return they act abusively toward you, do not turn away from their substance abuse, and instead steal from you to buy more drugs from some people they met at the rehab clinic.

Or, same scenario, but the family member actively works to avoid the temptations to return to abuse, gets a job, builds self-esteem, and thanks you for helping them.

Again, the first scenario is sacrifice, the second is trade.

Now, let’s bring it to your relationship, and this time, instead of substance abuse, we’ll talk about love, or what you think is love, but will find out shortly is anything but. You pour all of your time and energy into catering to the wants, whims, needs, and desires of a woman who won’t give you the time of day. She has no respect for you, demonstrates no love for you, and no matter what you do, she complains that it isn’t enough. She is abusive, accusing, bitchy, and maybe even goes so far as to tell you that she’s going to see other men while you go to your job or watch the kids at home.

Yes, that’s sacrifice. And the more you heap upon her, the less she’ll respect you and appreciate it. (And by the way, women are about as likely to encounter this scenario with a man; there is no gender-bias here. I’m writing primarily to men so I use pronouns appropriate for writing to men, but ladies, this lesson applies equally to you.) There’s absolutely nothing positive in it for you.

But you love her, you say? Sorry, Buddy, but no, you don’t. To love is to value, and you cannot value someone who would treat you this way. True sacrifice has one cause: NEED. Even people who don’t know the difference between need and love will not feel compelled to make sacrifices unless they need the approval or acceptance of the other person.

(For more on the relationship emotions of love, attraction, need, and lust, see my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report before you really screw yourself up.)

And we all know what comes when your relationship is based on need instead of love, right? Abuse, disappointment, frustration, and demise, because nobody wants to have a needy wuss suckling on their jugular vein.

You may have heard for all your life that good relationships are based on sacrifice, or compromise, and that’s utter crap. A relationship based on sacrifice destroys life, plain and simple. A relationship based on compromise puts two people who need to be cooperative partners in the position of score-keeping competitors whose satisfaction comes that the expense of the person who should be their partner. Compromise is how people deal with the shortcoming of a lack of compatibility, not how they express love. If you are compromising, or asking another to, you and your values are in conflict with the other’s, and this diminishes, not strengthens, love.

Good relationships are based on compatibility, cooperation, genuine love and active attraction. Incompatibility creates points of contention and competition, which makes cooperation difficult to impossible. The absence of love means the absence of friendship, loyalty, trust, and respect, among other things, all of which are required for intimacy of any kind, the condition that determines the depth and staying power of the relationship, and the satisfaction of being in it. And the absence of attraction creates boredom, the primary catalyst in dissolving any good relationship that ever was formed.

This isn’t theory or opinion, and isn’t something you can debate or choose to believe or disbelieve. It’s that kind of self-evident, in-your-face reality that you either use to make your life better or ignore at your own peril. Give your love, life, and energy only to someone who gives it to you in return, and if you find that you have joined yourself with a parasite, predator, user, abuser, or loser, realize that there is nothing about them to love, that you are seeking their acceptance or approval, validation, or some such nonsense, or else you are a codependent in need of psychological help. Also realize that someone else’s approval is meaningless. The only approval in the world that matters at all is your own.

That should be a lot easier, should it not? To approve your own life and self instead of depending one someone else, who isn’t qualified to judge, to approve it for you? You might be shocked at how many people I hear from every day who cannot do it. And the nemesis that thwarts them every single time?

Guilt!

Guilt because they had a good childhood. Guilt because they worked their ass off and got a better job than somebody else who didn’t. Guilt because somebody important to them chose to get behind the wheel of a car while drunk and killed himself in a car crash. Some of it is guilt over things they’ve done and should have worked their way through and forgiven themselves for years ago, but most of it is guilt for things that not only have they not done and weren’t responsible for, they had no control over at all!

If you’re having these kind of issues, get over them, as fast as possible and at any expense necessary. Guilt will suck the life out of you like nothing else can, not to mention make you somebody that nobody else wants to be around, especially the woman living in your house (unless she’s a parasite or predator).

So there it is. Why “nice guys” finish last in relationships isn’t because they’re nice. It’s because they’re either grossly ignorant of the relationship emotions or grossly ignorant of what women perceive as truly “nice.” I can help you with both, and a whole lot more…

Start by going to http://www.makingherhappy.com and downloading your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and getting the real scoop on everything that you, as a man, need to know about women, which will enable you to quickly learn even the finest points to be learned about the woman you love.

And while you’re at it, grab my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report and get a fast head start on managing and preventing crisis in case you’re unwittingly making any major mistakes now, or turning crisis around if you’ve already stepped in crap. My free “What Women Really Want” report will do you a world of good, too.

Together, we can get you on the road to happiness, but you have to take that first step alone; I can open the door, but you have to walk through.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

How Is Your Inner Child Affecting Your Relationship and Marriage, Making You Sexy or Subservient?

A man’s inner child is an important part of him, even and especially in the alpha male, because it is that inner child that provides that naughty boy side that women find so irresistible. However, the inner child can kill attraction even faster than he creates it if you don’t know how and where to let him be seen and make him behave. Do you know how and where? Read on, because I’m going to tell you…

I’ve been getting some random questions about naughty boy behavior, the inner child, etc., and the issue is one that should be discussed as a whole, so we’ll forego the customary reprints of the user letters and specific questions and dig into the subject, wherein the answer to all specific questions will be contained, along with a lot of other useful info.

When any adult loses touch with their inner child, it seems they entirely forget how to have fun, and become something the people around them will describe as “stodgy,” “too serious all the time,” “generally blah and depressed,” “dull,” etc., but if that inner child is constantly allowed to run amok, one is described as “Peter Pan,” “a middle-aged adolescent,” “someone who might grow up someday,” etc., and is generally thought to be undependable and irresponsible, possibly even a slacker. Obviously, a balance must be struck, because any kind of excessive behavior, even achievement, can be bad for your overall mental and emotional health.

With regard to attraction of the human female by the male, women love to catch glimpses of the man’s inner child, and definitely love it when that inner child is a mischievous little turd who cracks wise (without being disrespectful or hurtful), plays tricks and pranks on them occasionally (again, without being disrespectful or hurtful, seeking to share a laugh rather than have one at the woman’s expense), and is generally fun to be around. That cocky little boy who would pull her pigtails to get her to chase him is something she never outgrows; indeed, she expects him to grow up to be cockier and more sophisticated in his methods of teasing her and keeping her guessing.

However, there is a side to the inner child that a woman should never see, under any circumstances, lest her feelings of attraction are supplanted by maternal feelings and hence, instead of wanting to be intimate with you, she wants to lick a tissue and clean the mud off your face and tuck you into bed – ALONE!

Whoa! Never thought about that before? Just how much sexual energy do you think a woman is going to feel while her maternal triggers are being tripped instead of her attraction triggers? She’ll be mothering you, chasing you around the house cleaning up after you and bitching about your shortcomings, not chasing you around the house leaving a trail of clothing – yours and hers – behind. We’ve talked at length on several occasions about attraction triggers, and they are discussed completely and in great detail in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” but let’s discuss briefly these motherhood triggers and what happens when they are tripped.

First, what is the difference between a naughty boy and a wussy boy? Understanding this will take you miles down the road to avoiding allowing your “inner wuss” to even exist, let alone show through. The naughty boy understands that there are rules, and selectively stretches and disregards at least some of them, preferably those that are fun, harmless, and really shouldn’t be rules in the first place. Sound like fun?

He makes his own rules, at least to some noticeable extent, defining and exercising authority, not depending on someone else to do it. This makes him appear strong, cocky, even a little arrogant, not VULNERABLE. Anything child-like that has even a hint of vulnerability to it will pull the triggers on maternal behavior. What are you doing that could do this? Have you thought about it? Let’s look at it now, because it will open your eyes.

We’ve talked about the “baby talk” thing that couples do in past newsletters. BIG no-no. How about inferior positions during intimacy, like lying your head on her shoulder? This is what a child does when he doesn’t feel good, is it not? Don’t do it, EVER; being the protector is your role as far as the two of you are concerned, not hers.

Do you cower and sulk or pout when she gets mad at you? Screaming and throwing things is a really bad idea, but so is withdrawing and pouting; they both recall the subconscious image of a sulking little boy, weak and vulnerable, walking away after being scolded. How sexy is that??? Adults talk through their problems, right? And adult males lead the discussion and are respected and rewarded for it. A woman will sometimes get a rush from a man being verbally firm and sharp, as when he’s snapping her out of a dramatic tantrum to resolve an issue, but never when a man is being abusive or throwing a tantrum himself.

It’s fashionable for men to shave all their body hair, including pubic hair now. Somebody dial 9-1-1 and stop this madness, because that makes you look prepubescent! Trim if you must, but never shave, at least not around the genitals. You can’t look strong, virile, and sexy while presenting the same image that she saw when changing diapers or potty-training a little boy. Sure, she knows it’s you, but attraction and maternal drive are not volitional, logical things; they are fully automatic, biologically wired, irresistible and infallible. Once engaged, “stuff happens!” She may say she likes it, but it doesn’t take long for that child-like image to make her RESPOND biologically, not logically, in a way that neither of you want. Don’t indulge the moment at the expense of the rest of your marriage.

Okay, are we clear here? Never take on any posture, language, or activity that is reminiscent of a helpless, vulnerable child, even in satire (like intimate baby talk.) “Cute,” “sweet,” “precious,” etc., are not adjectives that equate to attractive, strong, virile, or sexy. As some of the women have reported, acting like a slacking teenager – depressed, unmotivated, lazy, irresponsible – can also dramatically trigger the maternal drive.

Watch your bearing, dress, language, tone, etc., and you will likely spot things that little wusses do, and even if you don’t do them for the same reason, they still present the subliminal/subconscious image of a little wuss in a bigger package. Yes, that’s bad, because that in turn equates to “giant industrial size little wussy boy who needs mama to clean up after him and put him to bed.” Just say, “no.” ‘Nuff said.

The name of the game Gentlemen, is “attraction,” a huge part of which is “communication.” What are you communicating? Is it attractive? Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of my e-book, “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and find out, and fix what needs fixing. Do it today, right now, because the longer you let it go the worse it gets, and the sooner you get it done the sooner you reap the rewards your partner has for you.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Confessions of Bored Women: Everybody Gets Hurt, But YOU Can Stop It!

A woman writes in response to the contest some ladies were having in a previous issue. As she confesses, it’s not just the men that get hurt when women get bored and out of control.

Well Guys, I thought I was going to be able to leave this topic alone for at least a week or two, but when this letter came in, I knew it couldn’t wait. I’ve seen too much of this myself, and I’m sure many of you have seen it, too because it is so common. However, I have to ask how many people ever stop to consider the underlying cause of this scenario or the ultimate impact until it’s pointed out to them. Meet Ursula:

Dear David,

After reading your newsletter from the woman that told you all about the contest her and her friends used to have, I have one of my own. I never thought I would be sharing this with anyone, but I figured if she was able to open up enough to share maybe I should as well.

I had a group of friends that I liked to go out with and we really got crazy at times. We did not call what we did a contest, but we did place bets at the beginning of each night on who would come out on top.

We would go out at night for a few drinks and in the parking lot we would set the rules of the game. The game was to see who at the end of the night had the most phone numbers of the men we met in the clubs.

We’d pick a bar, club or whatever you want to call it and see who could get the attention of the most men in the short time we spent there. We’d have them buy us drinks and pretend to be interested, but in reality we were only after the phone numbers. Once the number was obtained we no longer had any interest in that man and moved on to the next poor sucker.

I know you may be saying “what a terrible thing to do,” but to us it was just something sort of fun to do. Having anything more than watching the kids and cleaning the house or sitting on the couch while our husbands hogged the remote and channel surfed was an improvement. We had no interest in ever using the phone numbers or ever seeing the men again. They were just a tool in the pursuit of attention, relief from the sheer torment of our boredom, and of course winning the bet for the evening. We never gave out our numbers or even fake ones. We would tell them that if they wanted to see us again we would call them and for the most part it worked.

In the beginning I loved the attention and that just fueled the fire to continue, but it was so wrong. The means by which we obtained their number was up to each woman and sometimes it did get into some pretty heavy sex talk. Making them believe that they were going to get something that never was going to happen was common. Men were waiting for a call that was never going to come and the whole time we were laughing and counting the money or whatever the prize was for the night.

When the evening would end we would all meet up and show all the numbers we had collected, laughing the whole time about how stupid most men were to fall for such a trick. The truth is we were the ones that were pathetic, thinking that no one would be getting hurt, it was just a game, right? Wrong. It was people’s lives we were messing with and no one has that right.

The game finally came to an end when my best friend was beaten and raped in a parking lot by man whom she had played earlier. She’d promised him they’d meet later at her place and he waited in the parking lot to follow her home, and got furious when she said she wasn’t going home. She was in the hospital for three days and still isn’t over the trauma. So it’s not just men who get hurt when we get bored and out of control.

As I look back and to tell the truth, not that long ago we were looking for the attention we were not getting from the one that said he loved us. Some had husbands and some boyfriends, but we all had someone. I do not know if any of the other ladies shared this with their loved one or are still living on the thoughts of what we did, but I did come clean with my husband and we have moved on now.

Our relationship is not yet perfect, but we are working on it every day now, thanks to your book, to make it as perfect as it can be, and after just two weeks it’s like I’m living with a different man. I no longer go out with those friends, and we seldom speak except by phone. Now I spend my time with my husband, thankful for each precious moment we share together. With the attention he gives me now I do not have time or desire for games and it was worth everything to me just to have him back and spending time with me and talking to me instead of hiding at work.

Thanks for the ear,
Ursula

Do you see why this couldn’t wait? I’ve been receiving a few letters from some of you guys expressing negative thoughts about the notion of being responsible for a woman’s boredom, but look at what happened here…

One of these women was beaten and raped in a parking lot. She hasn’t yet gotten over it, and may never get over it, and as long as she’s not over it, her family won’t be either. Now think about this: If your wife was mugged in the parking lot of a mall or grocery store and beaten and raped, you’d want to kill the guy who did it, wouldn’t you? And would you not also be thinking, “If I’d only gone with her, this wouldn’t have happened,” right?

So what makes this other scenario any different? You’d still want to kill the guy, and you’d still be saying, “If I’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened.” We’re just talking about a different kind of “being there,” are we not? Being there mentally and emotionally to keep her from feeling abandoned and bored?

For as long as men have walked on Earth, part of our job is to protect our mate and offspring. And sometimes we have to protect them from themselves. There’s no denying it. Kids and adults alike can do really stupid, desperate, pointless things when they get emotionally charged and don’t think about the possible outcomes of what they are doing, or about to do, and when we take on a family, we take on some level of responsibility for helping them to make good decisions and keeping them out of harm’s way.

Some of you might answer that with, “Well, there’s a point where I should be able to expect them to not need my protection.” To that, I must ask you, if you sent your wife, your daughter, your sister, or your mother out the door ahead of you and followed to find her being raped, would you be so cold as to say, “She shouldn’t have done whatever caused the guy to jump on her” or would you jump in and save her? I rest my case.

Living life isn’t about “what should be.” It’s about “what is.” There’s always room for improvement, but you can’t shirk your responsibilities because the improvements aren’t coming as fast as you would like. If you see room for improvement in your marriage or relationship, you have a responsibility to yourself and your partner to make it happen.

If they fail to meet their responsibility, you lead by example in meeting yours and demand that they meet theirs as you have done, and if they still fail, they aren’t worth your time and effort, and you “fire” them, just as swiftly and surely as an employee you catch stealing from you; indeed, such a person would be stealing from you, stealing your life!

I can’t make it any plainer for you, Gentlemen. We’re not the police, and we don’t exist solely to serve and protect, but protection is a part of the job of being a man, a husband, a father, and a friend, whether it’s from a thug or herself, from his fist or her own boredom. (And if you hit that extreme point where “doing your job” as husband makes you miserable, you do have a responsibility to yourself to look at the option of changing “employers,” if you know what I mean.) So is being able to conduct a conversation that actually solves problems instead of just initiates conflict and competition. So is knowing as much about the women in your house as you know about yourself, in terms of needs, feelings, and so forth.

And so is just standing up and being a man, and enjoying it. If you do it well, it’s a job that pays off better than anything you can imagine, especially in terms of benefits! ;-)

So are you ready to do a better job of being a man, and get “paid” for it? I’ll make it easy for you. Just go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and see what I mean. Everybody who is using it is getting results, and so will you. After all, you’re a smart guy, right?

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Is Somebody Getting the Short End of the Stick in Your Relationship or Marriage?

Some men (and women) work their asses off for all the wrong reasons. Are you one of them? Would you know? There’s an easy way to tell, and there’s a way to fix it, too…

Today I was reminded of something that happened to me a long time ago that really teaches a great lesson about making a contribution in your relationship. I’ll spare you the details of the event because it was both boring and pathetic; I’ll merely say that it involved a broker who had resorted to scamming his clients to feed his wife’s insatiable appetite for shopping and ultimately ended up jailed, divorced, and selling used cars after he got out of jail, all because he didn’t say “no” or “stop” when he should have.

Have you ever asked yourself why you work the way you do, and who it’s really for? Whose goals you are trying to meet? If not, you should. That answer is definitely one worth having.

If you and your wife have sat down and planned your retirement together and you have jointly chosen things that you want to accomplish before and during your retirement, great! You’re on the right track. If the two of you are so independent that you keep your finances separated and are both making your own arrangements for retirement, that’s great too, as long as everybody holds up their end. But…

If you’re doing all the working and she’s doing all the spending, or if your both working but she’s still doing all the spending, something’s wrong. And no, I’m not talking about your wife being the one to handle paying the bills out of a joint account. If your wife is better at that kind of thing than you are and you can trust her to do it right and honestly, that’s the best thing to do.

What I AM talking about is when all significant financial decisions -- indeed, all decisions of any kind -- serve her goals and not yours. I see this around me nearly every day, and get letters from men asking for help with the issue. I won’t say that it’s a problem in every household by a long shot, but it’s getting common enough that I feel compelled to address it.

Why does it happen? Because you wussed out! No, there’s no other explanation, so don’t try. You wussed out and gave in and spoiled her rotten, or allowed her to spoil herself rotten because you didn’t have the spine to say, “No, that doesn’t work for me and I don’t want to do it. Working for no reward at all is slavery, not love, and you cannot leave me with no room to have any reward for my work.”

Maybe it was fear of retaliation, or fear of rejection, or fear of making the wrong decision. Maybe it was just being too lazy to make a decision. Maybe you were such a wuss that you thought that you had to buy her love by turning everything over to her and living for her pleasure to the exclusion of your own. Only you can know that, unless you want to give me the details of your history and have me point it out to you. But what I can deduce with 100% accuracy is that it happened because you were not involved in the decisions, except possibly as a “yes man.”

If it hasn’t happened to you, congratulations, but pay attention and make sure it doesn’t happen to you. The broker I mentioned was an alpha male sort who ran onto some hard times, and his conniving wife smelled blood and told him that if he didn’t continue to keep her up in the manner to which she had become accustomed, she’d leave and take everything he had. He panicked, plain and simple, and turned against everything he was (he was my futures trading broker for years and was the only honest broker I had ever met until this happened) out of fear that he would lose her.

I hope that it’s obvious to you that a woman who would leave you because you won’t spoil her isn’t worth having anyway, because she’s only there for the money, to take your life, not share it with you. And before anybody goes off half-cocked and sends me a nasty gram because I’m saying that “all women are just after money,” NO, I’M NOT. Most women are good women, just like most men are good men. But the bad ones tend to be really, REALLY bad, and if you find you’re with one, you’re options boil down to precisely two: Remain a slave to her desires or free yourself of her and start over with a good woman who will share your goals and desires and help you to attain them.

There is nothing you can do to change a bad person into a good one; they must do that, of their own free will and because they desire it, if it is ever to happen. You can’t blame a good woman for letting you spoil her, or a bad one for making you spoil her if she succeeds. All you can do is force a correction of the attitude and behavior and let the chips fall where they may. The woman’s character will be indicated by whether she straightens up or hits the door running (or tries to throw YOU out).

The point? It all boils down to who benefits from what you do. If you don’t benefit from your labor, why do it? (And for that matter, if you’re putting all your love and energy into a relationship and not getting any in return, why do that, either???) If you’re not benefiting from the time and effort you spend to generate income (or be a good husband) while others in your family do, that’s not being a man and a provider, it’s being a slave, and there is nothing loving or noble about being a slave.

Stand up and at least share in the benefits of your labor, and if somebody gets mad about it, tell them to either get over it or hit the road, because their days of reaping all the benefits of what you do while you get nothing more than the headache and the backache are over. That leaves them two choices, respect you and stay, or leave. Either one is a good option for you under the circumstances, right?

A great relationship and marriage is based on love, which is in turn based upon compatibility, and love brings with it respect, loyalty, trust, and friendship; the absence of those things is an accurate indicator of the absence of love. It also requires attraction to provide the fun and excitement that keeps the relationship alive for the decades that the two of you live together. Without it, life is boring, especially for her, and she’ll find a way to cure her boredom if you don’t cure it for her, either with drama or with somebody else. Nobody who loves you would allow you to work as their slave, and nobody to whom you are enslaved could ever feel attraction for you. It’s really that simple. You have to either turn it around or start over, the right way, with somebody else. End of story.

Sometimes mistakes are made and people get off-track, and you can turn it around just by making the choice to correct mistakes and get back on track. Other people start off the wrong way, marrying for need instead of love because they don’t know the difference, and you simply can’t get it back on track because it was never there to start with. How do you know the difference? And how do you respond when you do?

It’s not hard to do, just hard to recognize when you’ve not studied women, couples and relationships, and nobody who has studied them has told you what they’ve found. I’ve studied them, and still have women and couples working with me regularly to expand the knowledge base by testing new ideas and scenarios. Once you get on this road to improving your relationship, you can’t get off. It’s not that it’s an addiction; it’s just so rewarding to feel yourself getting more and more happy, intimate, excited, and safe in the knowledge that you are indeed living with a true partner, not just a dependent who may stab you in the back or leave you for no apparent reason.

Care to join us? We’re literally in a revolution, revolting against the mistaken and life-destroying ideas that bad relationships can only get worse, that it takes months of expensive therapy to get over common problems, that bedroom intimacy is going to die after you’ve been together for a year or two and an affair is the only way that you’re ever going to enjoy that kind of life again.

If you want to know what we’ve found so far, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and start reading. If you’re already feeling the strain and think a break-up might be imminent, also download my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report and feel free to share it with your friends. Together, we can fix just about anything, one way or another, so climb aboard and let’s get busy!

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Keeping Mothers (Your or Hers) from Wrecking Your Relationship or Marriage

A mother-in-law can be a wonderful ally or a destructive juggernaut, and unfortunately is even a significant factor in choosing a mate, as those who didn’t give the issue due consideration will now attest. What can you do to ensure that your mother-in-law – or hers – doesn’t wreck your marriage?

I’ve written several issues about interaction with your mother-in-law, and if you’ve not read them, now would be a good time to do so before advancing into this fairly delicate issue. See
February 16, 2008 and February 17, 2008.

Today’s issue is a touchy one, one that many couples deal with, and much to their chagrin I’m sure: the issue of a pushy, bossy, over-protective, and/or just plain busy-body mother of the wife. Don’t get me wrong; men’s mother’s can be a pain in the neck, too, but wives’ mothers have a little more room to be obnoxious and we men often don’t have nearly enough appreciation for how much stress their influence can cause, nor that we can do something about it. To wit, meet Hillary:

Hi David,

My mother has dominated me in every part of my life since childhood, and won’t stop. I’m now forty years old, and she continues to be the same overbearing and over-protective woman she was when I was in pigtails. I can’t even discipline my own children or have a serious discussion with my husband without her trying to push her agenda to the exclusion of my own. She calls me several times each day and literally interrogates me about what’s going on with everyone in my family, what I’m doing, what I’m thinking, and anything else that might give her an opportunity to force her values, priorities, and opinions, which often differ from my own, on me and my family,.

There have been times when I could overcome the childhood fear of having her mad at me, but most of the time she upsets me to the point where I am reduced to that same emotional wreck I was as a small child, giving in to everything she says to seek her approval. I know that I need help with this, and I’m in counseling, but it is proving to be a long, slow battle, because the counselor says that the way she treated me is genuine emotional abuse, and was traumatizing. I don’t necessarily believe that my mother meant to hurt me, but I do know that she meant to control me and she knew that she hurt me frequently.

I’m sharing this with you because my husband of 22 years, Dirk, still refuses to get involved in this, in spite of me begging him repeatedly to do so. I’m not yet strong enough to get her off of me and keep her off, and apparently he’s not either, or else he just doesn’t care. Every time we try to talk about it, he ends up yelling at me for being weak and unable to control my mother. I need more from him than to just tolerate my mother’s abuse and leave me on my own to handle this. I need him to intervene because he should be able to be strong enough to protect me from her or anybody else who tries to abuse me. Is that too much to ask?

I don’t know what to think. I can’t get him to talk to me about this enough to know whether he really thinks my weakness is disgusting or whether he’s making a big show of being mad at me to hide the fact that he’s also afraid of her. I’ve asked him to come to just one counseling session with me so my counselor could help me sort this out, and he just gets angry about me asking and complains about the money and time I spend to go to counseling. How can I make him understand what I’m going through and why I need him to help me? I’m at the end of my rope, and I can’t get my husband to start relieving some of this stress instead of adding to it, I’m going to have to do something that we’re all going to regret, because I can’t take any more of this.

Thanks so much,
Hillary

Well Hillary, I’ll tell him for you. Have him read this, and hold an iron skillet in your hand aimed at his head when you suggest to him that he read it, just to make sure the message gets through.

Dirk, and the rest of you, listen up. When there is a conflict between the women in your life that involves you and is obviously not getting resolved, it’s your job and responsibility to step in and address your wife’s adversary directly, and it is imperative that you do so swiftly and firmly, but with an even hand. Why?

For starters, you’re built to fight and protect, and better suited for it, and doing so is part of the price you pay for the benefits of the nurturing nature of a woman. It doesn’t matter if it’s your wife’s mother, your own mother, one of your daughters, somebody’s sister, or a busy-body friend who wants to stick their nose into family business; if somebody is stressing your wife to the point that she wants to talk to you about it, you need to offer to help, and if she comes out and asks you to help, you’re not a man if you don’t.

Now let’s clarify a thing or two before some of you get riled up and start sending nasty-grams. First, I am not implying that you should give your wife license to be a total screw-up and defend her stupidity. If she’s a substance abuser and her family is trying to talk her into straightening up, by all means you should be joining them, not protecting her from hearing the truth. That’s how you fulfill your responsibility to protect her life and well-being.

But if your mother-in-law (or your mother!) is trying to force her value system on your family as Hillary describes, or if your daughter is being an insufferable brat, or some single friend of your wife’s is relentlessly hassling her to leave her family at home and go out bar-hopping with her and won’t take “no” for an answer, some sister who has no children is trying to experience motherhood vicariously by trying to instruct your wife on how to raise your kids, or something like that, “it’s time for an intervention,” as the saying goes.

Also note that not all women will need help, and if you butt in when they are handling it they will resent your actions. You don’t need to ask permission, but you do need to verify that there is a need and that your assistance isn’t going to cause your wife to resent you for trying to help. You also need to be fully informed about what’s going on and it never hurts to hear all sides of the story before drawing your sword and shield. Your objective is to be a hero protecting his wife, not a controlling bully.

Also be aware that women have been known to adhere to deceitful and abusive family members when it came down to a choice between them and their loving, supportive husband. Yes, that sounds crazy, but there is a sort of illogical logic behind it if you can follow it. An insecure woman, especially one with issues of not getting enough attention as a child or having been abandoned by one or both parents due to divorce or death, will see her family as her “fallback” position if something goes wrong with her marriage. When I have seen this in the past, it took a combination of a strong husband not giving in to the wife’s desire to seek the approval of her family and personal counseling to resolve the childhood issues that cause her insecurity. (Right, Dee?)

Now for the good news, bad news element. If you do stand up and take the leadership role and tell whoever is making life hard for your wife that they will either stop or their contact with your wife will be stopped until they can behave themselves, one of two things will happen. If your wife wants your help in the matter, you will be seen as the strong, attractive knight in shining armor and you’ll quickly see her love, trust, and appreciation of you skyrocket, and her attraction switches will also be flipped on full power. You gotta love it when that happens…

However, if your wife is very emotionally damaged (provided that you have listened carefully and have appropriately stepped in to take appropriate action), she may in fact become enraged, defending those from whom you were protecting her! This is the worst of all possible scenarios, especially if she refuses to see that there is a problem, and is a sign that you in fact married the wrong woman, because she is too damaged or for some other reason just doesn’t choose to love you and be loyal to you as a wife should be to a husband, which is not one whit less than a husband should love and be loyal to his wife.

Unconditional love you say? Don’t get me started. If you think you can love someone and remain married and loyal to someone who does not love and cannot remain loyal to you, then you deserve every ounce of pain you endure because of it. To love is to value. How can you value that which would act to steal from or destroy your life? How can you remain loyal to that which would cheat you out of your life, or abuse you as you try to share your life? How can you even consider loving or remaining loyal to someone who has a reckless disregard for any life, theirs and yours included?

There must be a condition for real love to exist: that it is offered in trade for your fair share of the same, otherwise you pour your life down the drain, offering it to those who would destroy it without regard for the fact that every second you give of your life is one that can never be recovered. Anyone who would have you believe otherwise is setting you up to steal a piece of you himself, just like those who would have you believe that money or the love of money is the root of all evil is looking to take your money from you for himself. And no, that’s not my opinion, that’s the reality that surrounds us, and you ignore it at your own peril.

So there it is, Gentlemen. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be a man, protect your wife and family when necessary, and protect yourself in the process. That can be a tall order, especially if you don’t know how to communicate with women well, but if you do it right, with justice and reason as your sword and shield, your reward will be everything your wife can muster to love and nurture you. That’s a prize worth winning, for sure!

So how about it? Are you fit for duty? Do you have the communications skills, the understanding of women, and the “intestinal fortitude” to handle the job? If you do, I’m a bit curious as to why you are reading this, but if there is even the slightest question in your mind as to whether you could maneuver through this mine field successfully, including navigating through any possible aftermath, then you need to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and go through Uncle David’s “boot camp in a book” before the situation arises.

Or, if you really want, you can wait and try to learn how to do this when you’re already under fire and too stressed out to make good decisions. Do yourself a favor and do it now while you can do it the easy way; I’ve done it the hard way and in a nutshell, the hard way really sucks, more than you can imagine before you’ve lived through it.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Signs That She’s About to Erupt, and What to Do About It: Miracle Cure for Tension and Drama in Relationships and Marriage

A guy asks if there are any telltale signs of a woman needing a drama fix. A few do come to mind… (WINK!!!)

This is one of my favorite topics, and it’s something fun and useful. To start the ball rolling, meet Zane:

Hey David,

I’ve been following you for a while and I see the things you talk about in my home every day, especially the testing and the drama. I got pretty good at handing the testing within a couple of days of reading about it in your book, but the drama thing has me stumped. I know she does it, I even know when she’s doing it and not expressing a genuine problem, but I can’t quite catch the knack of seeing it coming so I can head it off before it gets ridiculous. What am I missing?

Thanks,
Zane

My reply:

Hey, Zane! Always good to hear from a fellow Southerner. (For all non-Southerners, “Hey” is Southern for “Hello and how are you?”) You are indeed missing something, but it’s not hard to spot.

In "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," when I describe why women create drama (emotional boredom) and how they nearly always use negative pressure to create it because it’s both faster and easier to get a drama fix by stirring up a fight than by achieving something exciting, you missed the description of the progression of the problem in her and how it works up into an explosion.

Remember that in a woman’s emotional make-up, it’s boredom, not crisis, that is the biggest enemy. If she doesn’t get relief from the boredom, she gets a